Warning: This story may contain elements that are not suitable for certain readers. Viewer discretion is advised.
"I have seen the dark universe yawning,
Where the black planets roll without aim;
Where they roll in their horror unheeded
Without knowledge or lustre or name."
- H. P. Lovecraft, "Nemesis"
Izuku remembered when he first got his quirk.
Their wretched claws gripped his mind, cursing him forever. The power… the dreams…
That terrible day was ingrained in his memory forever.
Izuku was picking up toys while the other children played around him. They were running around the schoolyard, laughing, yelling, and playing with each other.
He stopped for a moment to look at his best friend, Katsumi, playing with some of her friends. She was playing heroes and villains again with some other kids that he didn't know that well. She was one of the heroes of course. She always was, never wanting to be a villain.
Her quirk had just come in, so there were more people playing with her than usual. She was one of the few to have their quirk come in, so she was very popular. She was running around at the moment, yelling commands to her sidekicks.
She noticed that he was staring at her and ran over to him. 'Hey, Izuku! Wanna play with us? You can be one of my sidekicks!' She says loudly. She was always loud, it matched her personality.
'In a little bit Kacchan. I'm putting the toys away. I'll be done soon.' He said while starting to put the rest of the toys back into the box. As he picked up a hero figurine, she knelt down and started to help him. 'It'll be faster if I help you Izuku! A hero always helps people!'
He nodded and smiled at her. As she put some toy cars back into the box, he reached out to a toy robot that was near him. His head suddenly felt heavy as he tried picking it up. It felt like that one time when he stayed up all night to watch the premiere of a new hero show and didn't go to sleep that entire night.
Everything seems to drown out as the robot seemingly starts floating in the air. He doesn't notice Kacchan yelling, or the teacher running toward him. He doesn't even realize until it's too late that he is falling down, and the world goes black.
He dreamt of his eyes being gently covered by a shroud. It felt wrong… as if something didn't happen correctly. He heard whispers, barely noticeable but there.
Still, out of all of this, a single thought came into his mind before he woke up.
He had a quirk.
At the hospital, after the tests were run, the doctors said it was a mutation possibly of his mother's quirk. He didn't know what to name it, so he simply called it "Lift". He knew it wasn't the best name, but it wasn't until later that he knew it was something very different.
'Hey! Hey Izuku!' Kacchan yells. It was two days after Izuku had gotten his quirk. He and Katsumi had no school today, so they ran into the woods near their homes to play in.
At that moment, they were playing near a small river. She had her pants rolled up and was standing some feet away from Izuku in the river. He didn't want to get wet, so he sat at the shore. He looked up at her as she yelled at him. 'Do you think you can use your quirk and lift me up? C'mon, it'll be fun!'
He wasn't sure about that. His doctor told him that he shouldn't use his quirk without supervision, as they didn't know why using it caused him to go unconscious. 'I don't think that's a good idea Kacchan. The doctor said not to use my quirk without supervision. He said that it's for my own safety.'
She looks at him with an unimpressed face. 'Heroes don't need supervision when they use their quirks! Don't you wanna be a hero? Besides, if you don't use your quirk enough, you'll never learn how to use it!' She gives him a gleaming smile.
'Does that mean that you haven't learned to use your quirk? You do seem to use it quite a lot.' He says. Her smile turned feral, and she cupped her ear and turned towards him.
'Hah? I didn't hear that! Mind saying that again, Izuku?' He thought about repeating it but decided not to. He doesn't want to get wet and he knows she'll drag him in.
'I said that Kacchan must have really good control of her quirk then!' A compliment never hurts.
'That's what I thought! Now c'mon, use your quirk to lift me!' She yelled.
'Alright fine! I'll try to lift you up!' Izuku yelled back at her. He doesn't mention that he doesn't know how he managed to do it last time.
He stands up and focuses on her. He tried willing her to lift but that didn't seem to work at first. After a few seconds, his head felt slightly heavy, like last time. It's different though. Instead of lifting her up, nothing seems to happen. Everything seemed to disappear around him as he focused on her.
The corner of his vision started to turn slightly purple, suddenly covering everything he saw. His head hurt like someone was banging it, and he swore he started hearing quiet whispers. They disappeared seemingly as soon as they came, but then suddenly returned, and instead of whispers, it felt like the entire universe was yelling the same thing all at once.
PAIN
He lost all focus and fell on his back, unconscious. At the same time, Katsumi screamed in pain, her head feeling like it was being crushed. Blood came from her eyes and she fell to her bottom, crying and covering them.
He woke up in the hospital after that. Apparently, Katsumi's mother went out looking for them and heard her screams, and found them. She told him that she screamed all the way to the hospital, and they had to knock her out when she got there. She awoke before he did, and she told the doctors what had happened. The doctors never told his mother or him what she said, other than it was caused by his quirk. He didn't say much, other than asking if he could have his quirk's name changed. He asked it to be renamed to "Psyker". When asked why he simply said that it felt right.
He didn't tell them where he got that from. They wouldn't have believed him.
Like in the previous dream, a shroud covered his eyes. Unlike last time, the voices were yelling, screaming at him incomprehensibly. He had no idea what they were saying, and even when he tried to focus, he couldn't understand.
Suddenly, they all stopped, like they were never there. He heard nothing for a few moments before they all screamed the same word at him. A crescendo of voices.
PSYKER
After that, Katsumi wanted nothing to do with him. Their friendship seemingly ended on that river. She was quiet and cold toward him at first, but that changed as time went on. She became angrier and more aggressive towards not only him, but everyone else as well. The little girl he was friends with had all but disappeared.
She became the bane of his life. Throwing insults, mocking him, and beating him was not beneath him.
He was alone.
Or so he thought.
Izuku dreamed of nothing but a void with stormy clouds and impossible worlds.
The Shroud was gone. A first for the young boy of just ten.
Blackholes and singularities, nebulas of the brightest purples and blues, stars that flickered and burst with power and showering reality with their shards.
It was a beautiful sight, so perfect was the light of creation that appeared before him.
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, he stood naked on rock and diamonds. As he gazed up and saw what Creation contained, its perfection entranced him, pulling him and calling for him to stare forever.
Then.
Gone.
A large rift, huge and terrible looking appeared now in the place of everything that was in the sky. Arcs of pure energy jut out and spear and lance around it, looking like jagged claws and teeth. Cracked planets, dead stars, and black holes fill the sky around it.
Horror fills Izuku. He cannot fully comprehend what he sees, nor understand what is going on.
He fell down on his bottom, eyes wide and mouth open. Tears, cold and wet, fell down his face as he stared back into the face of hell.
Is this…
The end of everything?
No.
A voice called into his mind, no sound but he knew where it came from.
He looks into the distance in front of him. A shadow of a figure, outlined in purple and palest gold stood with its arm extended, pointing at him.
Within your heart lies the crossroads of the future of everything. You must choose.
Its arm goes down back to its side, and its outline seems to flare out.
For they have come, and will not stop until you have fallen.
From behind the figure, hordes of ravenous and terrible creatures run past him and straight toward Izuku, howling and screaming terrible sounds that make his head beat like a war drum.
Save us from the end.
They are close now, mere meters away. Claws and hooks dig in the stone and diamond as they charge straight toward him.
For in the end, there will be nothing left but ruins.
And a dead man on a dead throne.
Izuku woke up and then immediately picked up a notebook not yet filled. He grabs a pen and titled it.
"Dreams"
He got to work on writing down what he remembered immediately.
Izuku had no idea what this meant. It wasn't until he was older that he understood what this power he had actually meant and the terrible burden on his shoulders.
This is Izuku Midoriya's tale. A tale filled with darkness and sadness, of the truth behind the shroud that covers everyone's eyes, and the horrors that hide behind it. His battle for control of himself, and the cost of losing it.
This is the tale of the Psyker.